Tag Archives: The Sound of Music

The next best thing to seeing a Broadway show live onstage happens tonight on NBC at 8pm Eastern Standard time when the network broadcasts a live TV performance of the beloved Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music.

Carrie Underwood stars in the role of Maria, the young governess of a group of rowdy children. Stephen Moyer (True Blood) plays the children’s father, Captain von Trapp. The cast also features experienced Broadway performers such as Audra McDonald, Christian Borle, and Laura Benanti.

Fans of the famed film adaptation of The Sound of Music will discover that this original Broadway stage version includes a few songs that were not included in the movie. But they will also be happy to hear the musical’s many classics, such as “My Favorite Things,” “Do-Re-Mi,” “Sixteen Going on Seventeen,” and “Edelweiss”.

NBC’s live television production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music starring Carrie Underwood as Maria now has a Captain von Trapp to play opposite her. Actor Stephen Moyer will take on the part of the demanding widower who was memorably played on screen by Christopher Plummer.

Though Stephen Moyer is primarily known to audiences for his starring role on the hit vampire-themed TV show True Blood, he does have previous stage experience. Most recently Moyer played the part of smooth-talking lawyer Billy Flynn in Chicago at the Hollywood Bowl.

Produced by Craig Zadan and Neil Meron (TV’s Smash), the new production of The Sound of Music will be broadcast live on NBC on December 5.

Maria von Trapp, the real-life woman first made famous onstage by Mary Martin and later made legendary by Julie Andrews on film, is now going to be played by Grammy Award-winner pop/country star and former American Idol winner Carrie Underwood. As previously announced, NBC will be airing a television version of the beloved Rodgers & Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music, and it has been announced that Underwood will star in the new movie musical.

Producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron (NBC’s Broadway-themed drama Smash) said, “We’re thrilled to be presenting the Broadway version of The Sound of Music live, and having Carrie Underwood as the star brings it to a new generation who will fall in love with it for the first time as many millions of people already have.”

The exact air date for The Sound of Music, which will be broadcast live, has not yet been set, but it is likely to be scheduled for the holidays in 2013.

Soon NBC will be alive with The Sound of Music, and it won’t just be an annual airing of the beloved 1965 film. The peacock network has announced plans to air a live broadcast of a new production of the Rodgers & Hammerstein classic. Smash producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron will produce the television event, which will feature actors singing live. Casting is expected to begin right away. The air date has not been determined yet.

Zadan and Meron have a history of bringing favorite musicals to television, having produced TV movies of Annie, Gypsy, The Music Man, and Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella. But, unlike those movies, The Sound of Music will be a live broadcast. Of course NBC is not new to live broadcasting, with shows like Saturday Night Live and even 30 Rock doing the occasional live show. Back in the 1950s, broadcasting musicals live was done frequently on network television, and NBC hopes to bring back that spirit of spontaneity.

Fans of the film The Sound of Music, which stars Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, may be surprised to discover that there are several notable differences between the movie and the original Broadway stage version, which is likely the version that NBC will be producing. The stage musical features the songs “How Can Love Survive” and “No Way to Stop It,” but does not include Maria’s song “I Have Confidence,” which was written specifically for the movie. In place of the film’s duet “Something Good,” the stage show has a song called “An Ordinary Couple”. Some of the other well-known movie songs are shifted to different scenes in the stage show.